A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

January 11, 2008

Its fun to see all the investment bank idiots admitting to their subprime losses - like Chinese water torture, a drop at a time.

Just wait until they start admitting to their Alt-A liar's loan exposure, their option-ARM exposure and god forbid their prime 30-year fixed exposure.

And it's also fun to see these strong and powerful American companies running around Asia and the Arab world begging for dollars.

Actually, that's not fun. That part is really kinda sick.

Giant Write-Down Is Seen for Merrill

Merrill Lynch is expected to suffer $15 billion in losses stemming from soured mortgage investments, almost double its original estimate, prompting the firm to raise additional capital from an outside investor.

Merrill, the nation’s largest brokerage firm, is expected to disclose the huge write-down when it reports earnings next week, according to people who have been briefed on its plans. The loss far exceeds the $12 billion hit many Wall Street analysts had forecast.

To shore up its deteriorating finances, Merrill is now in discussions with investors in the United States, Asia and the Middle East, including American private equity firms, to raise about $4 billion in the coming days, these people said.

Merrill is hardly alone in seeking capital from overseas. United States financial institutions have raised more than $29 billion from foreign governments and their related investment entities, according to the market research firm Dealogic.

14 comments:

eric in vegas
said...

The write downs that these banks are going to take in the coming years will wipe out everything they earned during the boom days. Citi is next and they get to announce their 18 billion dollar write down and that they're firing 10% of their workers. They are so fucked when the time finally comes to mark to market these worthless loans and finally come clean that the trillions they lent in the past years (mortgage, heloc, auto, credit cards) is NEVER going to be paid back.

Thats all it is..a 15 billion dollar digit loss...so when does the real money kick in..oh that right we have no real money....

I tell you if i was a debt slave with C.Cards or a home that i was 95% upside down on and could not afford anyway....i would walk away from it all...People preach personal responsibility for personal actions...what about the actions of these big corps..what they are better than the average joe?..bullshit I say...walk away folks....walk away...and let us get this over with so we can move on.

So wait, our money supply is controlled by the federal reserve, right? And the federal reserve board is comprised of representatives from regional banks, right? And now we're watching some of the largest financial institutions in our country get bought by middle eastern interests, right?

Thats all it is..a 15 billion dollar digit loss...so when does the real money kick in..oh that right we have no real money....

I tell you if i was a debt slave with C.Cards or a home that i was 95% upside down on and could not afford anyway....i would walk away from it all...People preach personal responsibility for personal actions...what about the actions of these big corps..what they are better than the average joe?..bullshit I say...walk away folks....walk away...and let us get this over with so we can move on.============================

OMG! That was great! As the old saying goes "If I knew then what I know now," I would be a $30,000 dollar trillionaire (screw millionaire,) and walk away laughing when it came time to pay up. My life would be no different than it is now.Fiscal responsibility means you wind up with a credit score in the toilet (since paying off the balance every month makes you a "bad" customer,)so that's not a problem. I could have been living the good life for the last 5-7 years.

When all this sh#t unfolds, who is going to be left to send your payments to, anyway! The last bank left standing will be standing on a Mt Everest of toilet paper.

And who says that I'd HAVE to walk away. When a "Big Mac,fries,and a Coke" cost $5000 whats $15000/mo in mortgage and credit card payments?

Yup I to missed the boat "Stuck"..just goes to show you a clean life is a boring life...but since i have no debt ...and well low FICO due to no debt i can not even qualify for a C.C ...so fuckem...let them eat dead crow..they, the banks are just lucky i don't qualify...cause i would run up masses and masses of debt i never plan to payback.